


A Night to Remember

by Luthien



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:05:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>In the end, it doesn't require a chase through seedy alleyways, or for someone to go undercover, or for shots to be fired, or even, surprisingly, a dead body. All it requires is for Jack to say, "Yes."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night to Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Porn Battle XV: The Ides of Porn](http://battle.oxoniensis.org/).
> 
> Prompt: "exposed".

Jack long ago resigned himself to a solitary life, devoid of the larger intimacies that most married men take for granted. He arrived at that realisation even before Rosie deserted their small terrace and returned to her father's house. Once she left, Jack resigned himself to a life without the smaller intimacies as well.

He doesn't miss intimacy much. Or, at least, he didn't. He still doesn't miss Rosie's cool, relentlessly civil looks in the last days they shared the same roof, or the determined dutifulness with which she invested every household task.

Real warmth, though, and genuine pleasure in his company, is something else again. More than that: the pleasure of… not a like mind, not exactly, but a sharp intelligence that challenges his own, overlaid with a distinct and misleading lack of seriousness that drives him up the wall more often than not – though sometimes, in the right circumstances, that lack of seriousness is simply fun. He had forgotten fun, and hadn't expected to find it, or anything more than irritation, when he'd first looked into those keen – and, yes, beautiful – blue eyes across their first shared corpse.

It all seems so little, laid bare like that, when he tries to take it apart and make sense of it. It's almost nothing, hardly anything at all, and yet he could so very easily let it be his everything.

Jack has sometimes – often – wondered under what circumstances he might accept the offer that's always lurking in Miss Fisher's eyes when they're alone, and sometimes when they're not. If their lives were a film, any of the hazardous situations they've found themselves in together would have been enough for him to take Miss Fisher in his arms afterwards and kiss her, and then for the scene to fade to black. Of course the audience has a pretty good idea of what happens between the hero and the heroine beyond the final reel. That's what the filmmakers are counting on.

Except if the heroine is Miss Fisher, of course. Jack snorts a laugh: no doubt Miss Fisher would take him in her arms, and he'd find himself playing the part of the pure and innocent heroine, guarding her virtue at all costs.

It's a fanciful thought, but it somehow leaves him unsettled enough that he doesn't laugh a second time.

He doesn't know what situation would prove to be dire enough to make them - all right, him - succumb, after everything they've been through together and still not done more afterwards than bandy playful words that go nowhere while their eyes hold another conversation entirely over the rims of Miss Fisher's delicate crystal glassware.

In the end, it doesn't require a chase through seedy alleyways, or for someone to go undercover, or for shots to be fired, or even, surprisingly, a dead body. All it requires is for Jack to say, "Yes."

Phryne blinks in surprise, but only once. Then she smiles, and holds out her hand to him.

Tonight there is no Aunt to intrude at the least opportune moment, no Miss Williams to knock politely at a closed door, or at least not for hours yet until tonight's double feature at the Capitol is over and Collins takes his time seeing her safely home. There is no Mr Butler, either. He's been given the evening off, and gone out to do whatever it is that all good butlers do when they're off duty. Jane is back at school in France, and… Jack and Phryne are here. Together. Alone.

Jack takes Phryne's hand, but he doesn't kiss her. Not here, in the middle of their everyday life, even though there's no one else to see. Phryne looks up at him, so close that they _could_ kiss, but she doesn't kiss him. She doesn't say anything, either. They mount the stairs together slowly, sedately, as though this isn't something they've been denying themselves since almost the moment they met, and then on through murder investigation after murder investigation as the body count kept rising all about them.

They reach the head of the stairs, and Phryne takes his hands in both of hers and draws him to her door. Then she reaches up and takes him in her arms.

Before Phryne can draw him down far enough for a kiss, Jack has to bite down on his lip to stop himself from laughing.

"Are you going to let me in on the joke?" Phryne wants to know.

"Nothing. It's just… I knew this is how it would be."

"Is that a complaint, Jack?"

"Not at all."

This kiss is different from their last one, on the lookout in that French restaurant, when it had been imperative for Jack to keep Miss Fisher's attention. This time he definitely has her attention and there's no excuse to hide behind. This time, there's nothing but the truth, out in the open for her to see. Phryne fits against him, soft and warm but not pliant. Her kiss is as demanding as all the rest of her. Jack's kiss demands right back. She's good at kissing, but so is he. Or, at least, he used to be.

He's breathless when he raises his head, while Phryne draws back, apparently calm, with only the heightened colour in her cheeks to suggest anything otherwise. She smiles at him, a smile that's almost sad. It's hard won, this moment. This night.

"Come in," she says, opening the bedroom door and leading him inside. Her bedroom is everything he might have expected it to be, but somehow didn't. Admittedly, he's spent a long time trying very hard not to think of Miss Fisher in relation to any sort of bed. He looks about, taking in the long, free-standing dressing mirror, the Chinese folding screen, and the art works adorning every wall. They're modern paintings, all of them, though not quite all of them are nudes. Jack closes his eyes for a second and only just stops a rueful smile. He really should have expected the paintings.

Phryne sits down on the edge of the bed. She tilts her head, considering him as he continues to stand where he is, just inside the door.

Jack half-expects her to pat the mattress beside her, or hold out her arms to him or… something. Instead, she asks, "Aren't you going to take off your jacket?"

"Only if you take off yours," he counters, though in truth he's not sure if what she's wearing even qualifies as a jacket. It's lacy and beaded and tied loosely at the front, and the sleeves, such as they are, barely descend past her elbows.

Phryne smiles, that familiar, challenging little smile of hers, and doesn't take her eyes off him as she unties her "jacket" and shrugs it off her shoulders. It slithers into a sparkling heap on the coverlet behind her.

"Your turn," she says.

It takes a bit more than a single shrug for Jack to take off his jacket, but soon it's lying on the chaise longue opposite the foot of the bed.

"And your waistcoat," Phryne adds. "I'd like to see you a bit more… unbuttoned."

Jack complies, and makes a point of keeping his eyes on her until his waistcoat joins his jacket. Then he's standing before her in just his shirtsleeves and tie.

"Am I sufficiently unbuttoned now?" Jack asks.

Phryne gets up from the bed and walks over to him.

"No," she says, and reaches up to loosen his tie. It's still around his neck, though at about half-mast now, when Phryne tugs him down by the end of it for another kiss.

This kiss is softer and gentler than the last, less competitive, and more what Jack's been yearning for. Phryne nips lightly at his lower lip, sucking and licking and asking. Jack's tongue meets hers in answer, and then there's nothing gentle about the kiss any more. He wants to taste every inch of her, devour all of her, not just her mouth. The remaining distance between them is suddenly unbearable. Jack pulls Phryne closer, sighing into the kiss as he feels her press up against him, feels her legs and hips and breasts, and all the soft, secret places he's longed to touch. Phryne moans into the kiss, sounding just as desperate as he. Her hands have abandoned his tie and her arms are wrapped around his neck, trying to pull him closer, if that's even possible. 

They're both panting when they break the kiss this time. Phryne's face is wildly flushed, her lips swollen and her hair untidy, though that's mainly because Jack's fingers are still tangled in it.

Jack doesn't resist when she leads him over to the bed and pulls him down beside her. It would be easy to reach for each other and simply continue where they left off, but they don't. Neither of them has ever preferred the easy path. They lie there, face to face, the light from the lamp in the corner casting shadows, making Phryne look mysterious and unknowable and otherworldly.

Phryne reaches out and trails a finger from his chin along the underside of his jaw and then down along the side of his neck, pausing at the base of his throat. Jack swallows. Hard. The finger continues on down his chest, down along his belly and Jack breathes in sharply, closing his own hand over Phryne's before the finger can stray any lower. He doesn't need to look down to be sure that his response is both of this world and very obvious.

"No?" Phryne asks, sounding slightly disappointed. "What do you want Jack? Tell me."

"You," Jack says. "Just you."

"Then let me." Phryne moves her hand from beneath his and laces their fingers together.

Jack wants her touch, wants it desperately, and that's just the problem. He looks up at the ceiling. It's covered in elaborate decorative moulding, all vines and bunches of grapes. "It's been a long time," he says eventually.

"Since the last time?"

"That, yes. But mostly since I met you."

"Jack." It's just a single syllable, his name, plain and ordinary. But when Phryne says it there are shades and nuances and depths that are never there at any other time. 

Jack has no choice but to look at her again then.

She reaches out to stroke his cheek. "There's nothing wrong with starting off quick, just to take the edge off. After that, we can take our time. We'll have all night to do whatever else we want to do at our leisure."

"Yes," he says, and he can't help but frown as the familiar exasperation takes hold of him in this, the least familiar of settings. "But at least let me _try_ to last long enough to please you first."

"I don't think it would be possible for you not to please me, Jack," Phryne says.

And then they're kissing again, before Jack has a chance to say anything to that. 

He didn't please Rosie in the end, not for years before she left.

Phryne's hand slips up between them and then her fingers nudge the underside of his jaw, busily working at the top button of his shirt. He feels her lips move against his as the button comes loose from its buttonhole, and he knows she's grinning even while she keeps kissing him.

Rosie never would have… But there can be no comparison. There _is_ no comparison, and not just because Rosie is the past and Phryne is the here and now. Jack inhales, breathing in Phryne's warmth, daring and _Shalimar_ – he noticed the bottle on the dressing-table – in about equal parts. He very deliberately puts all thoughts of Rosie to one side and applies himself to kissing Phryne.

It's too late, of course. Phryne draws back. "What's the matter?" she asks.

Jack could say that it's nothing, but that's a path he doesn't wish to tread, so instead he says, "Ghosts."

Phryne's hand slips up from his collar to cup his cheek. "I have a few ghosts of my own, but I find it's better to leave them at the door," she says, her voice low and her eyes kind. 

She understands, and of course she's right, but kindness is not what Jack wants from her. Not tonight. He reaches for her, determined to do justice to this night, to give her the best of the man he is and not the broken remnants of the man he was, but Phryne is already sitting up. She twists around to take care of a couple of fastenings at her side, and then she's up on her feet and pulling her dress off over her head. Jack's impressed at her ability to undress so quickly and easily without assistance, but then Phryne is standing before him in her undergarments, and there's no room left in his head to think of anything else. 

She's wearing a… well, Jack supposes that it must be a corset, but it's like no corset he's ever seen. It's a long sheath of a thing, all in black, with a narrow thread of black ribbon around the edges, adorned with tiny black bows. Black suspenders attach at the bottom, holding up black silk stockings.

Jack opens his mouth, but somehow no sound emerges. 

Phryne flops back down on her side next to him. "Since I'm not allowed to touch you, at least for the moment, I think you should touch me," she says, putting her words into action by taking his hand and drawing it up to her breast.

Jack forces himself to keep breathing. He can feel the warmth of her through the thin fabric, and he can feel the shape of her beneath his palm. He moves a finger in small, exploratory circles and soon finds her nipple. He rubs it and tweaks it gently, coaxing it into life. Soon, Phryne is breathing deeply, her chest rising and falling with each new attention of his fingers to her breast, and when Jack glances up at her face again he finds her watching him with eyes that are darker than he's ever seen them.

Jack clears his throat. "Tell me what you want," he says, relieved that his voice sounds at least relatively steady.

"Show me what you can do," Phryne counters. She rolls over onto her back, spreading herself out on the bed, opening herself up to him.

Jack doesn't reply, but he's never been one to shrink from a challenge. He starts by finally allowing himself to touch Phryne with both hands. He cups her breasts first, but the corset-thing stops him from exploring their full shape. She watches with interest as he slides the thin straps over her shoulders and there's the slightest hint of a smile on her lips when he attempts to pull the top edge down. 

The corset-thing refuses to budge. It's not designed to be torn off by an impatient lover, apparently. Jack's somewhat surprised about that.

Phryne pushes herself up on her elbows. "Try again," she suggests.

It's easier this time. Jack pulls and Phryne wriggles and at last the undergarment gives a bit and slips down far enough to reveal Phryne's breasts. Phryne falls back onto the bed, arms spread out at her sides as if to proclaim: "Behold!"

Jack can't seem to do anything _but_ behold for a moment. He swallows, yet again, and leans down to cup a breast in each hand. Her skin is as smooth as satin, but softer and warmer and it's all Jack can do to stop himself from leaning down further and burying his face in the small hollow between her breasts. He doesn't, though. He still needs to show her what he can do.

He goes back to the circling motion he tried before, stroking and teasing and squeezing, and making a mental note of every sigh and gasp, every sudden, involuntary movement. He resolutely ignores the heat pooling low in his belly and the growing discomfort further down. And he ignores the little voice that says he's a fool for not letting her touch him when he had the opportunity.

Finally, Jack lifts his hands and sits back. Phryne's lying there, eyes closed, and seemingly abandoned, but her breath is coming fast, her nipples are pert and hard like little pebbles, and there's a stiffness in the line of her body that speaks of tension rather than languor.

Phryne's eyes flutter open. "Not bad," she says.

"I've hardly started yet," Jack says, and leans down to capture her lips in a kiss. He means it to be a promise of things to come rather than an end in itself, but Phryne has other ideas. She kisses him back, drawing him closer as her fingers stroke along the back of his neck before sliding up into his hair.

It's easy to just let it happen and Phryne keeps kissing him and kissing him until Jack is forced to pull away, before he loses his balance and falls on top of her. From the amused curve of her lips and the mischievous glint in her eye when she looks up at him, he can't help wondering if maybe that was her intention.

Shaking his head, Jack returns his attention to the corset-thing. There's a row of hooks and eyes down the side, almost hidden beneath a strip of decorative silk ribbon. Jack unhooks a couple near the top.

"You might have told me," he says.

"But Jack, where's the fun in that?" Phryne says, grinning wickedly.

Jack doesn't bother to reply, at least not in words. Instead, he folds the top edge of Phryne's undergarment down several inches, revealing more bare skin. Jack wonders if it feels as smooth and silky as the rest of her. 

He doesn't spend long wondering. He leans down and plants a kiss on the side of Phryne's neck, right on the pulse point. Phryne gasps, and then her hand comes up to his neck again, but this time it slips under his collar. As Jack works his way down her neck, one kiss at a time, Phryne's fingers work their way along Jack's shoulder. He pauses to press a more deliberate kiss into the hollow at the base of her throat while two of Phryne's fingers move back and forth along his clavicle in long, heavy strokes. 

Jack closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. And then he gives up on his plan to leave a soft, slow trail of kisses along the curve of Phryne's breast and instead leans down to take her nipple in his mouth.

He makes some sort of noise, guttural and wordless, as he sucks the puckered flesh into his mouth. The reality is better than anything he's imagined. He has no plan now, but just to suck and lick and kiss and _feel_. He rubs his cheek against her softness as his hand comes up to caress and squeeze. His teeth rake over her nipple and Phryne jerks against him, moaning so deep in her throat that he can feel the rumble of it where his cheek still presses against her skin.

He drags himself away from her breast and Phryne's arms come up around him, holding him close against her. He nuzzles downward, sucking and nipping and rubbing at her exposed flesh, until he comes up against the edge of the corset-thing again. He fumbles at it, trying to push it down without looking – without moving away from Phryne at all.

"Jack." Phryne breathes out his name in a broken whisper. "Try undoing the bows at the bottom."

Jack lifts his head, just enough to look up at her. She looks all undone, wild and beautiful as he's never seen her, letting herself be his in this moment, as she's never been before and perhaps never will be again.

He forces himself to stop looking at her and take his hands off her, and sits up so that he can reposition himself on the bed. The movement is enough to make his clothes rub against the erection he's been steadfastly ignoring, and he stifles a groan. Trying his best to continue to ignore it, he leans down to take a closer look at the bottom edge of the corset-thing, where silk meets shapely thigh. The black silk bows are larger here than elsewhere and after a brief investigation – _his knuckles brushing against her inner thigh_ – he discovers some more hooks and eyes lurking underneath. His hands feel big and clumsy as he tries to unhook them. The simple task takes far longer than it should, but at last they come free to reveal what they've been holding in place. The scrap of silk is hardly big enough to be called a garment. It barely covers what needs to be covered – or, at least, what it was covering until just now.

And it's soaked.

Jack holds himself very still, and then, very slowly, he leans down closer. He breathes in the sweet, musky smell of her and breathes out a long, shuddering breath.

"What are you waiting for, Jack?" Phryne asks from somewhere up above.

The sound of her voice breaks the spell, and then Jack all but loses his mind for a moment. He's not really aware of how he gets there, but the next moment he's lying between her legs, his prick hard and aching where it's trapped beneath him, and his hands are at her hips, holding onto her for dear life.

His mouth is a breath away from her most secret places – and then not even a breath away.

She tastes… like her scent, but more. Warm and wet and earthy, and like nothing on this earth. He breathes her in, sucks her in, nudges through the short, dark curls until he finds the core of her, sucking and licking and worshipping and needing and… He lifts his head up, pausing for breath and pushes a hand down between his own legs, gripping himself through his trousers, trying to keep going for as long as he needs to – for as long as Phryne needs him to.

"Jack." He hears Phryne's voice through some sort of hot, fuzzy haze. "You've shown me what you can do," she says, and then she's pulling up her legs on either side of him, sitting up and moving away. 

Jack groans, frustration and desperation getting in the way of his ability to get a word out.

"Now let me show you what I can do," she says against his ear, and then she's rolling him over onto his back and he groans again as he feels her fingers working at the buttons of his fly.

Phryne proves to be much more adept at getting his clothes off while he's lying down than he was with pulling off her undergarment. _More practice_ , he observes from the one tiny corner of his mind that's still calm, just before his trousers disappear over the side of the bed.

And _Christ_ , her hands are on him. At last. Jack closes his eyes and his head falls back, and he lets himself simply revel in her touch for a moment. Then her hands are gone and a second later there's something else, something wet- Oh holy hell, her lips, her mouth, her-

Jack lets out a strangled cry with a "No!" in there somewhere, and pushes her away.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," he gasps. "I just didn't want to-"

"It's all right," Phryne says, her voice as gentle as the hand that's now rubbing soothing circles into his hip. 

Jack opens his eyes, intending to say something or other, but he takes one look at her and all his words have fled. Phryne is sitting on the bed beside him, hair mussed, skin flushed, eyes two deep blue pools, and she's completely naked. She looks, without doubt, the most beautiful he's ever seen her. She smiles, amusement and affection and still a hint of mystery all mixed together, and then she leans in close and kisses him once, softly, on the mouth.

"Jack," she whispers against his lips. And then her leg is slipping over his, and the moment after that she's straddling him and he can feel the wetness of her against his belly, and her small, soft backside pushing back against the hard length of him.

He almost comes right then and there.

But Phryne's moving up and off him again. He wants to stop her, but then he realises she hasn't gone far. She's just… positioning herself. Jack doesn't need to be told to grab his prick and hold it steady. At last they're fully in accord. Phryne lowers herself, slowly and carefully, and Jack arches off the bed to meet her. The tip of his prick bumps against her the first time, just slightly too far up. They're both breathing heavily, eyes locked on each other as they realign themselves and try again. This time, all goes smoothly, so smooth and tight and wet, and utterly, utterly perfect that Jack really wouldn't care if this turns out to be the last time that he ever does this with anyone.

Well, not much.

Phryne lifts herself up on her knees, just high enough that he's still inside her, but only just. They both groan as she lowers herself again, and Jack clenches his hands, fingernails digging into his palms, in an effort not to enjoy it so much that everything's over before it's properly begun. It's altogether possible that if she keeps this up she just might kill him. Then she'd have her very own suspicious death to deal with.

"Jack," Phryne says again, and takes his left hand, draws it up to her breast.

Jack heaves a great sigh, eyes still closed as he rolls the nipple between thumb and forefinger.

Phryne gasps and it's Jack's turn to smile. He's a quick study. Phryne should have remembered that, but perhaps she's a trifle more distracted than she's been letting on.

He opens his eyes just in time to watch her as she lifts herself up off him again. He steels himself for the downward slide, breathless by the time she's pushed up hard against him again.

His right hand finds the core of her before she can lift herself again. His fingers slip through her wet folds, mimicking the slow, teasing rhythm that she's set.

Phryne lifts up and down again, and then again, moving faster now, with Jack's fingers spurring her onward at her breast and between her legs. She throws her head back, gasping as he thrusts up to meet her, and goes still. She clenches around him inside even as her knees and fingers dig into his thighs, and a low cry escapes her lips and just goes on and on.

She looks utterly abandoned in her pleasure: open, vulnerable, exposed. It's everything Jack's wanted, this trust, this intimacy. At last she's let him in completely – in every sense – and he will treasure that as it deserves to be treasured. He will love-

She clenches around him again and with a cry of his own he follows her over the edge, spending himself in long, steady pulses inside her.

With a long sigh, Phryne flops down on top of him, her head pillowed on his chest as his arms come up around her. He strokes his hands up and down her back as they lie there, breath still coming fast as the familiar (or, at least, remembered, in Jack's case) post-coital languor takes hold of them. They're still joined, and though Jack knows he's already starting to go soft, he doesn't try to pull away from her, any more than she tries to pull away from him. 

At last Phryne lifts her head. "That was quite something," she murmurs.

"Yes, you were," Jack says, trailing his hand up through her hair.

"Yes, _we_ were," Phryne corrects. "You have hidden depths, Inspector."

"And this surprises you?"

"Not at all," Phryne says, laying her head back against his chest. "Thank you for not denying us this."

"And thank you," Jack says, "for a night to remember – a memory that I will treasure."

Phryne's silent for a moment, and she sounds more hesitant than Jack's ever heard her when she says, "It is _a_ night to remember, isn't it, Jack? Just this one night?"

Jack closes his eyes, hating himself a little, but he gives the only possible reply: "It has to be."

"I know," says Phryne and leans up to kiss him. "And you know what else, Jack?" she asks, still so close that he can feel her breath hot on his skin.

"What?" Jack asks warily, hearing a certain, familiar note in her voice.

"The night's not over yet," Phryne says, rolling over onto the mattress and taking him with her.

Jack doesn't object. After all, she's right: the night's not over, and there are still hours yet until morning. He doesn't intend to waste them.


End file.
